Posted on 07/28/2007 12:34:40 PM PDT by wagglebee
The wife of a millionaire industrialist has shocked Indian high society by accusing her husband of forcing her to abort two baby girls after taking illegal tests to determine their gender.
Pooja Salotia even accused her husband, Chirag, of trying to force her to have sex with his two brothers to conceive a male heir for the family machinery business in the state of Gujarat. Police arrested her husband, his two brothers and seven other relatives after Mrs Salotia, 32, filed an official complaint in the city of Ahmedabad on Saturday.
Her allegations against 18 people have sent shockwaves across India by breaking a strict code of silence on such matters and exposing the extent of female foeticide among the urban middle and upper classes.
“This is a common thing even in rich families — a lot of them get their women to abort girls,” Mrs Salotia told The Times from Gujarat, where she has gone into hiding after the release on bail of everyone except her husband. “In our culture, girls are not important. But I can’t tolerate it any more because it’s insulting.”
The killing of newborn girls has been common in rural India, where a daughter is perceived as a financial burden because her family has to pay a hefty dowry when she is married. But since the advent of ultrasound technology, abortion of female foetuses has become increasingly prevalent, not only in rural communities but also among the urban middle classes.
An international team of researchers estimated last year that ten million girls had been aborted in India over the past two decades, while the Indian Medical Association says that five million are aborted annually.
The result is an increasingly severe gender imbalance, with only 927 women for every 1,000 men in India, according to the 2001 census, down from 945 women a decade earlier.
The worst imbalance, however, is in Indian cities where those with money have ready access to private doctors, who take bribes to skirt a 1994 ban on ultrasound gender tests.
A recent survey indicated that there were only 882 women for every 1,000 men in Defence Colony, one of the upmarket districts of Delhi.
Pratibha Patil, India’s first woman President, called at her inauguration on Wednesday for an end to female foeticide, two days after police found 30 female foetuses dumped in a well in the state of Orissa. However, Mrs Salotia is the first woman from Indian high society to admit publicly to the forced abortion of a girl.
The daughter of a government official in Gujarat, she graduated from university with a degree in commerce. Her sister is a doctor and her brother an architect — both based in London. She said that her ordeal began after she gave birth to twin girls in 1997, a year after she married her husband.
She claimed that his family started to harass her and even demanded compensation of £30,000 from her father because she had produced two girls. When she became pregnant again in 1998, her husband forced her to abort at four months after an ultrasound test showed the child to be female, she said. “He said he didn’t want another baby girl. He wants a boy because he’s concerned about who will run our empire — that’s the mentality.”
In 2001 Mrs Salotia was again forced to abort after an illegal gender test revealed she was carrying another girl, she said. After that, she said, her husband started frequenting sexologists and even suggested that she have sex with one of his two brothers as they both had sons. When she refused, and threatened to commit suicide, her husband’s family became even more abusive, beating her regularly.
She said that she endured their treatment until this year for the sake of her twin daughters, Dhvani and Dhruvi, who are now 10. She said she had been living separately from her husband for a month, in one of his six houses, and that he had filed for divorce.
Police said that they were searching for several doctors she accuses of performing her abortions.
In actuality - the post was focused on the Indian proclivity to murder girl babies in favor of boys....
That is a CULTURAL value/issue -- not a legal issue.. A "value" I hope is not adopted due to some folk's insane effort to worship "multiculturalism"...
Pooja Salotia even accused her husband, Chirag, of trying to force her to have sex with his two brothers to conceive a male heir for the family machinery business in the state of Gujarat."
Perhaps the lead sentences in the post will remind you and focus your attention on the ISSUE that prompted my original comment on "Culture" and "Diversity"...
A man ordering the murder of his own unborn, to pursue boy children to inherit the family business.....and charged with attempting to whore out his own wife.
At least in America -- girl children can inherit!
For all your venom against the “turd world” and “multi-culturalism” take a look at the bar graph and see how many “turd world” you can find. The top 15 countries belong to the rich and developed western hemisphere (North America and Western Europe).
If this is a “multiculturalism” issue, then the “multiculturalism is far superior to American-European culture at least on the issue of abortion.
Western civilization is aborting its future away, much more so than India. White people in particular seem to be deeply, deeply in love with aborting themselves into oblivion. But my "progressive" friends assure me that the world will be better without White people, so YAY!!!
Cant be too shocking...why do you think the Chinese are buying all those imaging machines?
Here is another stat for you
Check where US stands in “Child maltreatment deaths “
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_chi_mal_dea-health-child-maltreatment-deaths
I dont understand your kind. You generalize too much based on paranoid facts. But when specifically questioned about the reason for such paranoia, all you can come up with is the SRRR (Standard Redneck Rhetorical Response) “why did you come here if you like your own culture.. get out of my country because you still eat rice and curry and not 500 calorie fat-greased sausages.”
When faced with legitimately debatable questions you chose to resort to such cowardice.
You think that just because we live in US, we should simply not respond when your ilk starts abusing our culture and people ?
The reason why people like USA in India and why they overwhelmingly prefer USA to any other country to live or work is because they dont know it had people like you.
Thankfully, you are just a irritatingly small minority of nuisance mongerers who dont know whom they are fighting against based on half-knowledge about foreign cultures.
Its another thing that in modern times Indian culture has become a lot more americanized. When we made such drastic changes to our own society, why cant you atleast let people live when they dont want to interfere with your life ?
Indian culture to me is about food (eating rice, curry,dal), clothing style (my mom still wears saree.. she is over 60 years old and finds wearing skirts at her age ridiculous), watching bollywood movies and freedom to speak in my native language in public with people I know.
Tell me how am I hurting you and your “glorious” WASP culture by being myself ?
Assimilation of first generation immigrants is meaningless until you show that your country and culture is not hateful of them and their culture. You cant force greasy sausages down the throat of every immigrant, make old Indian women into skirts, etc. Thats un-American anyway.
Forced assimilation is impossible as well. You just cant help it when some foreign group comes here and makes a lot of attempt to fit in and is only met with derision about their native culture. Thats extremely thoughtless and insulting to the people.
Something that only rich, old snobs like you are good at.
BTW, here are two links about White American reluctance to adopt African American babies :
Foreigners vie to adopt US black babies
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=547647&page=1
Born in America, adopted abroad
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1027/p11s01-lifp.html
Finally, your statement that White Americans dont prefer black babies because they are “illegitimate” is laughable.. do you mean that all white babies put up for adoption are 100% legitimate and thats why they are preferred ? cmon.. you claim to be an engineer.. how can you be so illogical.. Arent most white babies out there in the first place because they were born out of wedlock ? usually when they are teens ? what about the glorious high school mating ritual of “prom dance” ? White teens getting knocked up by their mostly white boy friends.. that is all “legitimate” huh. Interesting.
FYI, all this is extraneous to the OP’s topic, but you raised the issue of multi-culturalism, not me.
HEY. HERE’S GENGIS KHAMMUNIST PUTTING DOWN AMERICA AGAIN.
WHAT THE EFF ARE YOU DOING IN THIS COUNTRY IF YOU HATE IT SO MUCH?
HAVE YOU EVER SAID ONE GOOD THING ABOUT EITHER AMERICA OR THE UK? NO. ONLY INSULTS.
That’s brilliant, gardenia. DO YOU NOT SEE THE CONTRADICTION AND HYPOCRCISY BURIED IN THOSE TWO PHRASES?
Hint: “Your kind” “Generalize”
You are a bigot to the core, an Anglophobe, a bigot.
Nope, i’m neither. Your kind refers to those who talk like him. Whats up with you anyway ?
Sorry about that!
Chirag Salotia, the 2007 Pro Choice Man Of The Year...
ok.. cool.
Sad
Now, please go away...
I am too secure and fixed in my beliefs and experienced based biases that you have no hope of changing my mind....
So — please save your time, effort and limited ability to stay on point without resorting to insults...
I’m asking nicely — Please leave me out of your discussion — and if my opinions continue to disturb you, please hit the “next post” button....
Its not my problem if you have trouble comprehending English or following the line of argument. I dont hate America and thats hardly my argument. My argument has nothing to do with hating anybody or country. You sound like a stupid, jilted adolescent lover every time you pick on my comments thinking its all about hating US.
Talking sense about ones country isn't hating US. Someone was making a “cultural supremacy” argument using a few perverts from India as an example. My point was if perverted psychos are to be seen as the best example of any culture, US has plenty of psychos of its own. (You obviously do, and I an not an anti-American for saying so). However my point is those perverts are an exception in every culture (including American culture) and not a rule.
Still having trouble following the line of argument? Well then maybe its time to go college and get an education, rather then wasting time ranting about job loss on FR.
” Whats up with you anyway ?”
Good question. LOL.
ok.
Gee, I wonder what the Democraps will say about this...... yes, they would demand free choice for the woman, so they would be able to condemn the husband in this case, but they can’t very well blame millions of women in India who ‘choose’ to abort female babies..... it’s all about CHOICE!!
your very reasons is why I don’t understand the acceptance of polygamy.....what do young men do when all the young females are taken by a few rich elites....
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